


Adventure of a Lifetime

by Ser_Thirst_A_Lot



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fix-It, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, HEAVY angst with a VERY fluffy ending, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Izuna is dead in this so, M/M, Madara has lots of introspection to do, Madara is in denial, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, Uchiha Madara-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, but everyone is smarter this time, he's basically making me write all this I'M INNOCENT, long story short: Madara needs a goddamn hug, my flaily fluffy side might shine through my attempts at angst, oh yeah ZETSU'S STILL A LITTLE SHIT, smut in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 18:35:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22462630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ser_Thirst_A_Lot/pseuds/Ser_Thirst_A_Lot
Summary: The first time Madara sees Senju Tobirama show any kind of emotion is when Hashirama is seconds away from committing suicide. Tobirama struggles against the Mokuton vines keeping him in place and curses Hashirama, Madara, the gods,begshis brother to stop, to just listen, begsMadarato change his request. But Madara can’t bring himself to answer, to do anything but stare as a strange feeling of unease settles in the pit of his stomach.In the end (or the beginning, is it now, of a whole new era of shaky peace?), Madara stops Hashirama’s kunai and tells himself it’s because he can’t bear to watch his old friend die.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Hashirama & Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 44
Kudos: 332





	Adventure of a Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I looooooove madatobi fluff<3 I want these boys to be happy always!!!1!*0* I’ll even start a collection of fluffy art of them uwu  
> Also me: *starts this monster of a fic with mountains of angst planned before the plot yeets itself into its happy ending*  
> Me: *surprised pikachu face*
> 
> Anyway, I’m:  
> \- Stupid  
> \- Obsessed  
> \- Really insecure about my writing after an overly long writer’s block, but I hope this turns out okay or at least gets better :3 Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madara thought what he wanted most of all was to end Senju Tobirama’s life. He thought wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for this chapter:** depictions of violence, implied suicidal thoughts, depression and extreme loneliness, unhealthy coping mechanisms. **Please take care of yourself if any of these trigger you.**
> 
>  **Chapter Soundtrack:** [I'm Seeing Red — Tommee Profitt (feat. Aron Wright)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKkTu_o4f9s)  
> 

It starts like this…

Or, rather, everything ends.

Happiness, peace, hope and the strongest bond Madara had with any living being.

It starts with Senju Tobirama piercing Izuna’s lung, dealing damage so severe that the clan’s best healers and their most intricate iryo jutsu fail to mitigate the worst of the damage.

It ends, as countless hopes, and dreams, and joys of countless men have before, with a funeral. A funeral Madara attends only because it would be strange for him not to. Despite the pain, the crippling force of his loss, he remains stoic and poised on the outside, no matter how difficult it is for him to restrain emotion. But as Head of the clan, as guide for his people, he must strive to always remain steadfast. Even though, on the inside, it feels as if his heart is tearing his chest apart with a pain so insidious, vicious and bitter that it’s all he can do to keep down the bile rising in his throat.

It feels like—it _should_ be—another one of his frequent night terrors setting out to torment him with Izuna’s near-translucent flesh and stilled heart, his bloodied corpse lying disfigured somewhere on the battlefield. Such dreams plagued him since Kou’s death, the third of his siblings to fade into the shadows of the never-ending war. Such dreams made him wake up in cold sweat, his breathing ragged and his heart thundering until he’d stumble over to his brother’s room to make sure he was alive and well.

This time, though, consciousness doesn’t come to save him—it damns him instead.

_Please._

This time, he returns to an empty home, haunted by Izuna’s beloved little trinkets that he’d collect from every new place he’d visit, strewn around haphazardly despite Madara’s incessant complaining about the mess.

_Please, come back._

Echoes of Izuna’s voice seem to ricochet from the walls, deafening Madara’s ears with pleas, curses and accusations.

 _Eye-stealer,_ he hears Izuna’s voice call to him, even though it was his brother himself who had begged him to exchange their eyes—if only for Izuna to have a chance to look at the future this way.

If only for Madara to get stronger with his Eternal Mangekyō, to be able to protect their clan against their enemies.

_I’m begging you._

He falls to his knees so hard he feels pain shoot through them. It pales in comparison to the grief cutting away at him from the inside. He tastes the tears trailing down his cheeks and sinks further onto the floor, violent sobs wreaking his body, soul crumbling to pieces with no solace in sight. His hands shake, and it’s a rare sight even for himself to see them gloveless, for once. Scarred, hardened by years of determined training and battle, and still, they’ve failed him in the end.

Every jutsu he’d learned, every taijutsu move perfected, every weapon mastered—all of it was _useless_ , because when it mattered, he couldn’t protect his most precious person. Just like that, because he wasn’t strong enough, quick enough, attentive enough, the last of Madara’s immediate family is gone.

He thinks back to that day on the battlefield etched into his memory with perfect clarity thanks to his accursed eyes. Recalls the glimpse he’d caught of the Senju’s blade ripping through his little brother’s flesh. Thinks back to the moment and sees red. He imagines the face of his enemy before him—white hair framing crimson eyes, staring coldly, ruthlessly across the battlefield.

_Tobirama._

The name is like a curse. It mocks Madara, barrels him into a rage fueled by the very fact of the man’s existence.

He imagines the Senju’s face twisted in pain he, Madara, would personally inflict upon him. He imagines every which way he would find to drive the man to insanity with debilitating genjutsus where he would force the Senju watch his clan be exterminated one by one, _including_ Hashirama, the delusional, peace-loving fool. He imagines bringing Tobirama to the brink of death with agony, making him beg for death and denying him the liberty, healing him only to inflict more pain, over and over, with white-hot flames burning his skin, crumbling and chipping away at his bones until he’s satisfied, until there’s nothing of his body left but ash.

A daydream of his revenge paints itself in perfect clarity in his mind, and Madara feels hate overcome him so completely that it becomes hard to breathe again, hard to imagine how he can go on living past this point, but…

But.

Inevitably, life goes on, as it is wont to do, despite whatever death and madness takes place in this twisted nightmare of a world.

There’s a new streak of violence in the ensuing battles between the Senju and Uchiha, if only because Madara stops focusing his attention on Hashirama. His Susanoo is a devastating force against anyone not quick enough to evade or powerful enough to withstand its blows. The intensity of his Katon seems to have increased exponentially, and he finds himself uncaring how many lives he takes, just as long as the thirst for vengeance roiling through him is at least a little bit sated.

(It doesn’t help, not really. Of _course_ , it doesn’t, but there is nothing stopping Madara from pretending otherwise.)

He’s taken to a habit, too, of clashing with Tobirama on the battlefield, attacking him with every bit of force he can muster, and that, _only_ that, perhaps, gives him some small measure of satisfaction.

Even then, it quickly becomes obvious that it’s a fruitless endeavor. For all of Madara’s power thanks to his new eyes ( _stolen eyes, his_ brother’s _eyes, the eyes of his_ dead _little brother, whom he will_ never _see again_ ), he’s alone facing the two Senju brothers now, one hailed as a God, the other feared as Demon. It’s a stupid game they’ve resorted to playing—Madara either burns through the Senju right and left, with Hashirama raising Mokuton shields to protect those he can from Madara’s attacks or healing the ones on the verge of death, while his pest of a brother inevitably thwarts Madara’s attacks. As Madara switches to Tobirama, it’s Hashirama that holds him back, even as he tries not to use all he has against Madara. It’s always been like this between them, with Madara curtailing his power as well, but he’s almost certain that if they did end up fighting it out at their maximum capacity, Hashirama would come out the winner. So this… restraint of his feels like a dumb show of pity that only adds to Madara’s piled up rage.

He keeps fighting, though, for a memory, for a mere ghost, for the ache deep in his chest which calls him to kill the one responsible for his grief, through all possible and impossible means. Tobirama is weaker than him, that much is obvious, yet he stands his ground against Madara, intrepid and determined as he ever was when facing Izuna. Despite their disparity in power, Tobirama’s speed and his incessant supply of insidious techniques help him evade Madara’s strongest assaults. Madara curses him for it, growing ever more violent. There is a burning _hate_ inside him, and so he perseveres, because no matter how many tricks the Senju has up his as, he only needs to stumble _once_.

No such luck, of course. It’s when Madara truly loses himself and is moments away from crushing Tobirama in his Susanoo’s hand… it’s that moment when Hashirama starts fighting in earnest.

Madara can sympathize with the sentiment, at least, and it’s even amusing, in a twisted sort of way, how differently fate has dealt with the two of them. He fights for a brother forever out of reach, while Hashirama fights to protect the last brother he has left. Hashirama has a future he can build with family, while Madara is left with nothing—and he can _do nothing_ to change that. Twisted, broken laughter yearns to break through his ragged breaths at how worthless his life has become as the Senju brothers work together to dismantle his defenses bit by little bit, battle after battle, chipping away at the last remaining crumbles of his resolve.

And finally, it ends like this…

Or, rather, it should end, any second now.

Madara is on his back, exhausted, hurting and out of breath, drained of chakra. His Sharingan has dimmed, the strain he’s put on his eyes in this day-long battle all but unbearable.

The man who has rid Madara of everything but his life stands over him, sword raised and ready to strike, ready to take the life Madara has, admittedly, stopped caring about.

“Madara,” he says, voice just as unfeeling as his expression is, “you’re finished.”

Madara can say nothing, do nothing, _feel_ nothing but hate as he faces his gaze with matching red eyes. Izuna’s eyes, which will soon be shut forever.

“Wait, Tobirama.”

That’s Hashirama’s voice, quiet but firm, coming from Madara’s side. It pains him, understandably; even after all that's happened, he still can't bring himself to think Hashirama an enemy.

“Why, Anija? This is our chance!”

He agrees with Tobirama to some extent; he’s so tired and in so much pain. If only Hashirama ends this…

“ _No one_ touches him.”

Madara winces at the sudden lash of Hashirama’s chakra, feeling increasingly weary from every breath he has to take. He just wants to see Izuna again—and apologize. It’s a shame Hashirama doesn’t understand this, probably because he simply can’t. His family stands right there beside him, and he can’t possibly imagine the scope of Madara’s pain, thinks it can be fixed by a few empty promises. He goes on again with his tirade about peace, imploring Madara, for the thousandth fucking time, to join him in this fantasy.

To _trust_ him.

As if Madara would ever forget Izuna’s words that day on the battlefield.

_Do not be deceived by them._

As if Madara would ever betray him.

_Have you forgotten that these bastards killed everyone—killed the Uchiha?_

“Can’t we just,” Hashirama pleads, “go back to those days and skip stones together?”

Part of Madara wants to, of course.

The sad, dejected part of him that goes on wishing, without any particular sympathy, simply for the objective rightness of it, that no more child or sibling—or anyone, really—dies as a result of this war.

Madara wants to laugh again. As if such a world is possible.

To humor him, though, Madara offers Hashirama a choice.

It’s funny to see Tobirama’s face twist in shock as Madara announces his request. He knows it’s outrageous, knows Hashirama surely won’t go through with killing his brother, at the very least, but himself? So that Tobirama, too, experiences the same loss Madara has.

Madara forces himself not to think about the implications of forcing a friend’s hand in suicide. Whatever the foolish, nostalgic part of his heart would have him believe, they are at war, therefore enemies and there’s far too much blood between them for the rift to be mended.

Right?

He wonders if he’d feel satisfied that Tobirama would be rid of his last remaining sibling as well. He wants to see how Tobirama would react, whether he’d feel as much pain as Madara does, whether he’d also turn into a fractured reflection of what he once was. Madara doubts it; the Demon of the Senju, as he’s called in his clan, is hardly famed for his displays of emotion. Madara would be surprised if the man is able to feel anything at all, really.

And yet…

“Etch these words into your heart, Tobirama," Hashirama speaks the words that seal his fate.

Madara watches the younger Senju throughout the whole exchange. Watches him pale and shake his head rigidly, as if he can barely move. Madara forces himself to suppress all reaction as Hashirama removes his chest plate, takes out his blade and prepares to strike.

He tells himself he _doesn’t_ care.

Hashirama is his _enemy_.

He let Madara’s brother _die_.

It’s then that Tobirama breaks through whatever daze he’d ended up in and lungs toward his brother, shouting for him to stop. He almost manages to intercept him, but Mokuton vines spring from the ground to restrain him, even as he struggles against them, straining muscle and ripping skin.

“Hashirama, it's madness!” he shouts. “ _P_ _lease—_ ”

“It’s going to be all right, Tobirama,” Hashirama says, and Madara hears the hitch in his voice. Sees his teary smile from the corner of his eye.

Madara looks at Tobirama and is shocked by the range of emotion he sees on his face, for the very first time. The man struggles against the vines and curses Hashirama, Madara, the gods, _begs_ his brother to stop, to just listen, begs _Madara_ to change his request.

But Madara can’t bring himself to answer, to do anything but stare as a strange feeling of unease settles in the pit of his stomach.

Tobirama is genuinely scared.

“No! Anija, don’t!”

He’s _terrified_.

“Anija, please! Kill me instead!”

Hashirama raises his blade.

“Farewell.”

In the end (or the beginning, is it now, of a whole new era of shaky peace?), Madara stops Hashirama’s kunai and tells himself it’s because he can’t bear to watch his old friend die.

“That’s enough,” he lies.

Of course, it isn’t. But Hashirama’s easy willingness to sacrifice himself is proof enough that he wouldn’t have killed his little brother even if Madara hadn’t given him the choice. Madara wonders, distantly, if he’d truly wish for his friend to suffer that pain anyway. 

(He doesn’t think about whether he’d truly wish this kind of torment even upon the one who’d inflicted it on _him_ in the first place. He does, without doubt, he _needs_ , he _craves_ for the bastard to feel what he feels, just not at the cost of Hashirama’s life. He decides that Hashirama is too good of a man to sacrifice for Madara’s vengeance, and that’s the truth Madara chooses to believe in.)

Tobirama is released. He clings to his brother like a lifeline, muttering curses and thanks and pleads him to never do something as foolish as this again. His shoulders shake and he seems to be on the verge of tears, which is another shock for Madara, seeing the Senju—the _Demon_ of the Senju—so vulnerable, obviously relieved, obviously happy.

Happy like Madara never will be.

 _But maybe_ , he thinks when Hashirama embraces him, too, in gratitude. Perhaps, for the greater good, for the rightness of it…

_I can pretend to be._

The next few months go by in a haze of peace talks and endless amendments to multitudes of contracts. Madara would think the red-eyed bastard Hashirama so adoringly calls a brother would be far less supportive of peace with a clan he so obviously hates. Once again, reality fails to meet Madara’s expectations.

Tobirama is exceptionally skilled in politics, making up for his intimidating demeanor and absence of the infectious charisma Hashirama possesses with blessedly logical arguments for peace terms and a useful knack for finding the best compromises to satisfy both their clans. An alliance with the Uzumaki is quickly cemented, and Mito, Hashirama’s future wife, becomes an irreplaceable part of the peacemaking process. An insignificant kunoichi at first sight, she proves to be a devastating force when provoked and turns out to be just as sophisticated as Tobirama in the realm of post-war negotiations. He and Mito are a more impressive force when together, managing to secure a tentative alliance with the Hatake and Nara, both of the clans having been more or less neutral during the war.

Madara supposes Tobirama was strong-armed into such a compliant state by his brother, who seems to be doubly energetic about these dreams of his now that they seem just withing reach. It both annoys and amuses Madara, the younger Senju’s obvious insincerity; he must hate the idea of a village with the Uchiha living alongside him when just a year ago they’d clash to death on the battlefield. Madara supposes Tobirama will start plotting to make life harder for the Uchiha at some point, but Hashirama surely won’t let him go too far, and Madara swears to himself that he will be prepared.

Then again,thwarting whatever plans Tobirama may concoct to topple the peace they’re building offers little solace when Madara wants the man to truly suffer. Wants to see him burn and scream from agony, begging for the mercy of death as it gets too strong to bear. Madara imagines it, imagines himself smiling and only dialing up the pain in answer.

Of course, as usual, the sweet thought of revenge not quite enough to satisfy him.

 _As if anything ever will,_ Madara thinks months later, still debilitated by grief and full of gnawing hatred.

He’s seated in front of his brother’s ashes on the eve of his clan’s arrival to the new settlement right around the Naka river. The river where Madara met Hashirama. The same one where Izuna and Tobirama clashed for the first time.

Feelings of what would be joy (were his brother here to enjoy the newfound safety with him), but is instead the familiar mix of sorrow and denial, make his heart ache just like it has each day since Izuna’s passing. It doesn’t really differ, his life, from day to day: he wakes up, eats alone, takes care of whatever missives and paperwork need to be dealt with for the day, meets with Hashirama for negotiations—and those are the better days when the ever-bright demeanor of his friend soothes the chronic pain and make it just a touch more bearable—pointedly ignores the younger Senju if he showed up to negotiations with his brother, meditates, meditates some more to quell constant noise making his head hurt, eats alone, sleeps.

His interactions with his own clan have dwindled down to passing nods and respectful bows in Madara’s direction, so gradually that he’d only noticed when a day passed without him exchanging as much as a word with an Uchiha. He was never one for closeness, mostly because of his war-induced paranoia, and he’d underestimated how much of an important bridge Izuna had been between him and clan. It’s not that _Madara_ didn’t want anything to do with them. He knew and cared for the children that used to sneak into the back yard of the Head House to prank Izuna and get on Madara's nerves, only for them all to laugh about it after. Now they dared not approach because Madara could scarcely form a smile on the best of days, and far too often, the simple act of talking felt like a battle against the full brunt of Hashirama’s Mokuton. As for the others, his supposed friends (although he’s never truly let anyone get that close, he realizes now, only Hashirama) and distant relatives, they understood how much he mourned. They seemed to sympathize with how much he hurt, but any hint of kindness and pity shown his way was rebutted by explosive or spiteful words Madara would regret the minute they left his mouth. It physically pains him, and _that_ was something no one could see. At some point, they’d stopped trying to help.

Next day: rinse, repeat. Perhaps the volume of the tears changes from time to time, depending on how vividly his mind tormented him with memories of Izuna’s last moments.

Fuck those fools who say time heals all wounds. Obviously, they’re full of shit.

After all, time passed. The world changed beyond recognition, with an alarming speed at that. Everyone around him prospered in the absence of constant battles, and yet Madara _still_ feels like a broken shell of a human.

At least, he figures, his estranged clan would be happy with whatever this village would bring them.

As expected, the thought brings him no joy whatsoever.

*

It’s easy for Madara to forget whatever doubt and hesitation kept him from seeing his request fulfilled back at the battlefield, now that he sees his brother’s murderer every single day.

 _Not murderer_ , he reminds himself, watching the Senju scold their esteemed Hokage about yet another contract he’d somehow managed to botch. Honestly, Madara is absolutely sure at this point that Hashirama would have gotten nowhere without his little brother there to smack him on the head and get him on track when he inevitably screws things up. It would be a source of constant amusement in different circumstances, he supposes.

As it is, Madara couldn’t help but scowl every time he saw Tobirama’s face—not that of a murderer, because logically, Madara understands that Izuna, too, would never hesitate to off his rival.

That doesn’t mean he has to _accept_ it.

Izuna’s voice keeps haunting him, and Madara could swear he sometimes feels the influence of some other presence in his vicinity.

It makes him more erratic day by day, drives him ever so gradually insane.

_Traitor._

Every time he passes Tobirama in the halls of the Administration Tower—

_Traitor._

Every time he thinks of punching him for another veiled insult towards Madara or his clan and doesn’t go through with it—

_Traitor._

As he eavesdrops conversations behind closed doors and lets obvious slights go.

“Besides, Madara Uchiha being chosen as the leader won't happen,” he hears Tobirama say once, tone over-confident, condescending, just like the bastard himself is, “everyone knows this.”

Of course, they do.

“ _You_ are the one who founded this settlement _,_ Anija. _”_

Their _leader_ is Hashirama, the pillar of hope, powerful, steadfast and unbroken by the war.

Even those from the Uchiha say as much.”

It would infuriate Madara if it weren’t so true, proven with every mistrustful glance thrown at him from the villagers who find him too reclusive, from his own clansmen who expect him to rejoice at the end of a war that would have had their already worn-out clan all but exterminated. But how can he? How can _they_ , those of them who’ve experienced the same pain he does? What magical remedy have they found for grief that tears one’s soul apart, unrelenting, never fading, fueled by the memories seared into the mind by the Sharingan?

Madara sometimes wants to scream at the people around him to see, to _understand_ that he’s not pushing them away _on purpose_. He’s not withdrawing further into himself because he _wants to,_ godsdammit. He’s simply tired, and torn, and lonely, and—

Izuna’s ghost won’t leave him be.

_Traitor._

Can’t _anyone_ help?

_Traitor. Traitor. Traitor._

Hashirama tries, admittedly.

He invites him to dinner almost daily, and Madara accepts, at times, on the condition Tobirama isn’t there. He hopes for Hashirama’s loud and ever-excited attitude to distract him from the _presence_ and the _voice_ he knows aren’t really there, but it seldom helps. This evening, Hashirama must tell him what would amount to an epic tale by the time they’ve finished eating, and Madara listens, half paying attention, trying to deal with the buzz of anxiety sending pins and needles down his limbs. He nods and smiles at the appropriate times, some of the words even registering; it doesn’t even take too long for Madara to catch up and congratulate Mito on her pregnancy, which is progress as far as he’s concerned.

It’s too difficult, still. Too bothersome. So Madara retires early and takes the long way back to his house, a place far too empty for it to feel like a home.

Haruki Uchiha, Hikaku's four-year old son, runs into Madara, stops short, stares at him with wide, terrified eyes and mumbles a quick apology, scurrying away at once.

This irritates him, though, if he were an honest man, he would admit how much it breaks his heart. Madara knows the glare has become all but constant on his face, both from the long-standing habit of squinting from his once corrosive Mangekyō and the general dissatisfaction with, well, most things in life, but honestly?

He hadn't done nearly enough to deserve such treatment. 

_Right?_

He wishes someone could see it. He wishes someone would help, but at this point, he reckons only Hashirama truly gives a damn about him, always so happy to see him and curious about Madara’s well-being. But Madara can’t bring himself to tell his friend the truth, to share just how much the world hurts him simply by virtue of existing. Even then, when he thinks of talking to his most trusted, his _only_ beloved friend about the pain, Izuna’s voice whispers,

_Traitor._

He ends up silently crying himself this night, just like the one before and likely the one tomorrow. He wishes desperately for happy dreams to come—and to never wake from one of them, preferably, like the people in the fable of an ancient jutsu described by the engravings on the sacred Stone Tablet, said to be the key to the Uchiha’s salvation.

Madara so sorely wishes it were true.

In a dreamworld of his own design, he’d able to cause Tobirama as much pain as he damn well pleases. Even with Izuna alive in his makeshift reality, Madara thinks, he would still want to cause the Senju pain.

In this reality, however, he can find no viable way of hurting him, short of physical harm.

Any verbal jabs Madara throws at him are brushed off, no matter how deep an issue they seem to touch upon. There’s no use calling him a demon, a heartless, emotionless machine behind his back when Tobirama seems unbothered by such accusations.

Despite that, Madara reminds himself, Tobirama _did_ care that his brother was ready to die. He _had_ seen him feel something under those icy layers, and Madara finds himself desperate to find a way to unearth that pain again. Without directly going after Hashirama, though, it does become somewhat of a problem.

Or a challenge, as Madara likes to think of it, accepting it readily as the Senju enters his office one day with an overdue stack of paperwork on the establishment of civilian and shinobi-specialized hospitals.

Tobirama never misses deadlines, Madara has learned over the past months. So this is somewhat an anomaly.

“I see your useless ass has finally decided to take care of this, Senju,” he says in lieu of greeting, and Tobirama simply glares at him, the deep bags under his eyes making his expression all the more somber. 

“I apologize,” Tobirama says, voice calm as ever. Madara sifts through the perfectly filled out papers, finding nothing to criticize at first glance. A shame. “Things got away from me last week.”

“You mean the notion of actually caring for other people’s welfare never got through your head?” It is a bit an unfair, admittedly; the Senju has his hands in just about everything concerning Konoha’s construction and domestic affairs and it’s obviously wearing him down. Madara can’t help the taunt, however, “And here I was beginning to think you capable of caring about something other than the senseless experiments you so cherish.”

Tobirama narrows his eyes, but otherwise keeps calm.

“Good day, Madara-sama,” he says, before turning around to leave.

“Make sure you don’t fuck up again, Senju,” Madara calls after him, unrelenting. “You’re only needed because of your efficiency; see that it doesn’t fail just as you attempt at masquerading as a human being.”

The door slams so hard that the impact makes the walls shake, and Madara exhales a humorless chuckle as he leans back in his chair. Ironic, in a way, that he accuses Tobirama of what he himself has been doing for the past few months—putting on a stupid show of normalcy when he feels mostly numb and void. At least Tobirama still has his brother and yet more family—that cousin he’s so close too, Mito, whom he calls sister, a nephew or a niece to come.

Madara wishes… for something he cannot describe but yearns for, desperately. For a life that isn’t so bleak, at least, a life unmarred by the pain that never stops, not even in his dreams. He wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to just—

He doesn’t cry himself to sleep that night, simply forgoes sleep altogether, despite the dizzying noise in his head, despite the voice berating him for not hurting the Senju when he came to him, not beating him until he bled. Izuna assures him that Tobirama would deserve it, calls Madara _weak_ and a _traitor, traitor,_ pathetic _traitor._

Madara buries his head in his pillow and screams _._

At one point, it’s Madara’s turn to relay some work or other to the Senju. The day started terribly, with Madara trapped in a nightmare and awoken at an ungodly hour in the morning, absolutely drained and jittery, wanting nothing more than a strong sedative (preferably alcohol) to shut him off for at least a twenty-four-hour dreamless sleep.

He must work, instead. It’s become a habit, working in a state of numbness, going through the motions without really noticing and appreciating his surroundings as he once did.

(As he once did, when his little brother was alive. Izuna would always spot and point out anything he found interesting as they roamed their compound, the woods, foreign lands. Life was a source of inspiration for him, beautiful and bright and colorful, ust like his personality. He could only ‘see’ it through Madara’s eyes now, if at all. It’s injustice of the highest order, he thinks, and surely the gods have abandoned them if they’d allowed it to occur.)

Willing himself out of his thoughts, Madara walks the few doors to Tobirama’s office, not intending to stay there for a second longer than necessary, too tired to even look at the Senju, much less talk to him. But he notices them—construction plans in the Senju's hands and strewn about his desk for the Uchiha orphanages set to be expanded, because the unexpectedly large number of homeless kids had shocked even the most senile-minded elders into silence on the last interclan meeting. What the hell…

“…are you doing with those, Senju?” Madara feels his blood boil with rage.

As if _he_ could be trusted with taking care of such a matter. With _children’s lives._

“Give me those.”

“Uchiha,” Tobirama growls, keeping the plans out of Madara’s reach, “you’ll have the plans once I include all the necessary suggestions and corrections—”

“Suggestions and corrections to matters that _do not_ concern you! This is _my_ clan.”

 _The stronger the Uchiha's hate, Anija,_ Madara remembers him saying, _the stronger their Sharingan manifests itself._

“Hashirama—”

“I don’t care what that oaf told you to do!” Madara shoves the desk out of the way as Tobirama stands up, his gaze as furious as Madara feels. “Give them here.”

“Listen—”

Madara doesn’t want to. He grabs at the papers again, knowing his speed should be enough but the Senju has the audacity to teleport behind him with the _jutsu he used to kill Izuna_. 

Scenes of that day yearn to replay in Madara's mind and he barely suppresses the memories as he whirls around to face him.

“I’m part of all the infrastructure and development projects in the village," the bastard continues. "This isn’t—”

“ _Isn’t. Your. Concern._ ” And truly, it shouldn’t be so hard for someone usually so smart to understand, should it? “There are plenty of Uchiha who will take care of the project just fine—hell, _I_ could do it! This isn’t your place to interfere!”

“Why?”

Madara clenches his fists. “It’s our children, Senju."

He wonders how many children and teenagers the man before him has killed, how many of his clansmen he’s left short of siblings. Surely, the Senju’s boasted genius isn’t something a construction project requires; surely Renri, a skilled kunoichi and the architect behind the construction of most of the facilities back at the Uchiha's homeland would have no trouble with this.

“And I will not trust them to a biased asshole like you.”

“Biased." Tobirama raises an eyebrow. “How?”

“With every action you take to lower my clan and elevate yours,” Madara says, “with every conversation you have with Hashirama behind closed doors about the dangers of my clan’s rightful dōjutsu and my supposed inadequacy, when without me, you wouldn’t have this village in the first place!"

“I’ve never—”

“Give me those fucking plans!” Madara slashes at the papers with a precise shuriken strike that pins them to the nearest wall. Tobirama steps in his way though. “I’m warning you, Senju. Back off.”

“Madara listen,” the Senju tries again, “I have never allowed myself to demean your clan or do anything to undermine your place in the village. What foolish notion would have you think that?”

“The countless Uchiha you killed without mercy—”

“Just as _your_ clan killed the Senju, when we were on the opposing sides of a _war,_ ” Tobirama cuts him off. “We are in a _village_ our clans created _together_. Stop pretending we’re still enemies.”

“I’m sure you’d like us to be.”

“That’s foolish.”

“I’m sure you’d like to see us all dead, wouldn’t you, Senju?” Madara persists. “And me most of all, though of course you wouldn’t admit it to the idiot of a Hokage we’ve all so _happily_ chosen.”

“Madara, if this is about your brother—”

“Don’t…” Madara warns, barely noticing the red coloring the edges of his vision as his Sharingan comes to life. “Don’t you dare speak—you have no idea what I—what _we’ve_ —what these children have suffered—”

Tobirama levels him with a glare so intense that Madara pauses, despite the fury burning incandescence in his veins, despite his yearning to just grab the bastard and kill.

“I’ve been through the war too,” Tobirama says, voice tight.

“You haven’t lost as much, and _you can’t understand_!”

“Madara, you’re not the only one who’s lost brothers!” Tobirama finally raises his voice, seeming to have lost all patience, and it coincides perfectly with Madara losing his already tenuous grip on his self-control.

He is blinded by red. Rage, insidious and unstoppable as the fires of Amaterasu, swells somewhere in his chest. He lets out a scream of pent-up frustration and doesn’t even notice as he pins the Senju to the wall by his throat.

This.

_This moment._

A daydream of his revenge so _close_ to becoming reality.

It would be so easy to break the Senju's neck before he could retaliate. Put him under an unbreakable genjutsu and make him suffer through all the torments Madara's imagination can come up with. Break limb after limb, then heal them, painfully and incompletely, then do it all over again and throw his body at Hashirama’s feet despite the horror, the disgust he would have to face—

Madara can’t.

He cannot— _should_ not—do this to his friend.

But he can allow himself small indulgence, surely?

“Let me teach you a little lesson, Senju Tobirama." He squeezes the Senju’s throat tighter and crowds him against the wall, meeting no resistance—an oddity he doesn’t notice in the moment. “Stay out of my clan’s affairs. Stay out of what’s left of my family. _Stay out of my life_.”

Madara presses his free hand to Tobirama’s side, just under his ribs, and heats it with molten chakra to a less than comfortable temperature, high enough to set cloth sizzling.

“You have taken hundreds from my clan, if not thousands accumulated in the years of war.” Madara heats his hand further, delighting in the way Tobirama shudders from the sudden pain. Still unresisting. Odd, but convenient. “And you have taken _everything_ from _me_.”

Madara knows the silencing seals are activated and so has no worries about the scream he draws as his fingers, white-hot and burning with chakra, connect with skin in the same spot the Senju pierced in Izuna’s body. He makes a fist, digging in, pushing as hard as he can without making it lethal, even though he wishes, more than anything, to go further and end Tobirama’s life for good.

“I don’t kill you because your idiot of a brother, my _friend_ , is going to be disappointed—though I surely wouldn’t mourn you I were unlucky enough to have you as family,” Madara continues amid the Senju’s ragged breathing. The leather of his glove must make the pain worse, he supposes. “I leave this scar for you, so you remember: you are not welcome anywhere near my clan, least of all near our children. None of us your suggestions on where and how we live.” Another pained scream as Madara ratchets up the heat. “Or your idiotic input about the Sharingan and how to deal with its progression. You’ve done enough to my clan.” Madara chuckles as tears spill from Tobirama’s eyes, coating Madara’s sleeves; the pained groans are music to Madara's ears, though he’d much prefer the fleeting melody of a neck being broken in half. “Push me further—I _dare_ you—and I will leave much more than a scar for you to have nightmares about in the afterlife.”

He withdraws his fist, lets the Senju sink onto his knees, heaving for breath, all but delirious with pain. He makes his voice purposefully sweet as he looks at his handiwork—skin that will never properly heal, red, swollen, oozing thin trickles of blood—and says,

“Have I made myself clear?”

It takes a kick to Tobirama’s abdomen and a repeat of his question for him to choke out a semblance of affirmation. Content for the first time in a long while, Madara takes the offending papers and leaves.

It’s almost painful, how fast the rush of pleasure dissipates, all but hurling Madara in a mild state of shock.

 _Of course,_ the satisfaction wrought from the Senju’s pain-streaked face turns to ash the moment Madara calms down, having found himself back in his office and in a sounder state of mind.

 _Of course,_ it doesn’t feel like a victory; nothing does, since his greatest loss.

And of course, _of fucking course,_ he feels the tell-tale tingling of what he’s come to associate with Izuna’s presence nudging at his mind, making him feel guilt for feeling guilty, taunting him with accusatory whispers for this—whatever _this_ is.

Madara doesn’t know how he ends up in his office, huddled in a corner and shaking. Sunlight streaming through the windows but doing nothing to warm the deathly cold settled in the room. He looks down at his hands trembling and covered with a sheen of sweat under the thick material of his gloves, and simply stares.

Control of his emotions is a skill he’d never managed to fully master. Suppressing some emotions was more or less easy. Masking grief, sadness or anxiety has become second nature as a necessary survival skill. Handling his anger, however, was a difficult task, and in a case like this—all but impossible. That’s no excuse, though, because he _should have_ minded the consequences.

Madara takes a deep breath.

With Tobirama now having tangible proof of Madara hurting him, Hashirama will find out and be furious with him, and Madara’s completely _ruined_ the little solace in his life he had left.

He lets out a shuddering exhale.

_What have I done?_

The retaliation doesn’t come, not even in the form of Hashirama’s mildest pep talks (which are themselves a special kind of torture).

Madara is confused the next day, when he comes to his friend’s office, stiff and exhausted from an all-nighter.

It was different today. I wasn't Izuna’s voice keeping him awake and agitated, rather the never-ending mantra of _you’re not the only one who’s lost brothers_ running through his head, making Madara feel a strange mixture of hurt, and indignation, and plain confusion.

Why had it bothered him so much?

Of course, he understands it, on a conscious level. Of course, he knows Tobirama himself had lost his brothers to Uchiha child-killers. He _knows_ that. But Madara had disposed of the child-killing squads as his first decree as Clan Head, Madara had never used all he had in his arsenal against Hashirama, not even close. Madara _stopped_ Hashirama sacrificing himself to appease him, while Tobirama had, single-handedly, killed Izuna brother in cold blood. This was _personal_. The fact that Madara wasn’t alone in his pain didn’t magically change that.

And still the phrase rings in his head like a persistent headache, definitely a precursor to one, and Madara waits for the other shoe to drop as he enters Hashirama’s office to face his—smiling?

Still friend?

Hashirama mentions nothing of the previous day, gives no sign he even knows what happened. Tobirama _must_ have told him, though.

Right?

A cold shiver runs through Madara as he thinks of the possibility—but no, the wound wasn’t even close to lethal. Painful, uncomfortable, yes, but barely motion-restricting to a shinobi of Tobirama’s caliber.

“The plans,” Madara blurts out, shaking himself out of his thoughts, “for the orphanage at the Uchiha district.”

During last night’s insomnia Madara used the free time to take care of the orphanage plans himself, begrudgingly keeping the notes Tobirama had left on them, finding nothing wrong or outright suspicious about his initial suggestions. It had taken him a while to sort out through the infrastructure plans and logistics; but he wasn’t stupid, and he had nothing better to do anyway.

“Oh?” Hashirama says, “what about them? Tobirama told me he passed them on to you.”

“He _told_ you?” Madara asks, dumbfounded.

Hashirama frowns, tilting his head to the side.

“Yeah, he said it’d be better for you to take care of them. It's good to see him trust you with one of his projects, he doesn't usually..." Hashirama’s frown deepens as Madara splutters, at a loss of what to _think._ “Are you all right, Madara?”

“Well, I—I completed them. I’ll bring them over to you later,” Madara says in a rush, finally. Then sighs. Then, “Did he tell you anything else?”

“No. Should he have?”

“How should I know?” Madara winces at his own ineloquence.

Hashirama’s smile is a gentle, inevitably calming thing.

“I do hope you’re all right, old friend,” he says. “If you needed him for something?” Hashirama asks, the hesitance in his voice conveying enough of what he thinks of the possibility. “You’ll probably have to wait until he’s back from his mission.”

“Mission,” Madara echoes. Surely, he’d have had to heal his wound before it, and no one in the village could heal it better than his brother. _Why_ hadn’t he gone to him? “What mission?”

“That’s what I called you for. It isn’t anything particularly dangerous,” Hashirama sifts out a mission scroll out of the mess on his desk and tossing it to Madara, “but important, nonetheless. You need to look over it too. Our envoys have to be escorted to the capital with the final draft on the agreement on supplies and funding.”

 _And fast_ , Madara thinks, reading over the scroll. The correspondence has already been delayed far too much because of the Daimyo’s whims and constant corrections to the terms.

“We’ve been getting reports of a mercenary clans affiliated with Kumogakure scouring the roads, though, trying to secure their place as a new village. And they never did reply to our missive for a peace treaty,” Hashirama rambles on as Madara reads through the scroll, focusing on a few very familiar clan names.

It’s then that Tobirama appears in a flash of yellow, equipped with full armor and the scarce array of weapons he’d gotten used to taking since he’d acquired Raijin no Ken. He tenses when he sees Madara but doesn’t give anything else away as he faces his brother, no sign of a bothersome wound in his movements.

“Everything is in order, Anija,” he says, “I’m ready to leave.”

“Good, good,” Hashirama says, standing up to wrap his arm around Tobirama’s shoulders. “Be alert at all times and if anything goes wrong, call me right away—”

“I’m not a child—”

“—because no one else can know the envoy is leaving and we haven’t been able to gather any tangible intel on these shinobis’ fighting style. Madara?”

"Only ever heard of them in passing," Madara lies.

He _should_ probably mention the Uchiha’s frequent scuffles with the mercenary clans east of their compound, most of which have now chosen to ally with the Hidden Cloud Village and spread its influence to other lands. Those were brief encounters, but the little information Madara had about them would have been doubly useful to the man now off to face them without an inkling about their capabilities.

The insidious poisons. The intricate chakra masking. The practically invisible seals difficult even for the Sharingan to spot.

“I know it’s dangerous to involve more people,” Hashirama says, still unsure, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, “but maybe backup isn’t such a bad idea, Tobi?"

“Don’t worry, Anija,” Tobirama reassures him, sounding long-suffering, “I’ll be fine.”

Hashirama’s agitation is a tangible thing, permeating the whole room with the wild-lashing chakra of his. Madara keeps his silence, though, and watches Tobirama leave through the window.

Another spur of the moment decision, another guilt-trip. But Tobirama had surely wanted to wait until he was done with the mission to confront Hashirama about what transpired, and if luck is on Madara's side, this might just secure Tobirama’s demise and rid Madara of all suspicion and responsibility. Well, not _all_ of it, because Hashirama could easily learn of the Uchiha’s encounters with these clans in the future by talking to his clansmen, despite the secrecy of the current mission, and see the obvious goal of Madara’s failure to mention it. As it stands, though, Madara could claim not to have been involved in the territorial scuffles, only focusing on the large battles the Uchiha were part of. However, if he survives, Tobirama would most likely see through the lie, so maybe, just in case, Madara ought to think of a particularly good reason why he’d so blatantly withheld information that could potentially save the _Hokage’s brother’s_ life—

Madara forcefully cuts off his train of thought, lest he end up in a full-blown panic attack. He’s never had one of those, perhaps inklings, beginnings of panic that he’d always manage to suppress. Izuna, though, would suffer from them time and time again, choking on screams and shivering, begging for help until Madara would calm him with embraces and reassuring words, promising that one day, someday, the horrors of the war would end.

Madara had no one to comfort him. Full-blown panic would be a living nightmare. So is, however, the next few days as he seriously contemplates leaving the village to get away from... everything.

But his clan. Something about clan responsibility. About the children he wants to grow up without war and the estranged clanmates he still cares about and Madara… can’t.

So he buries himself in yet more work, completing his share of paperwork with more vigor than he ever has. He even takes on some of the extra projects Tobirama had appropriated in an effort to distract himself from the fact that he’d just unsubtly, purely on impulse, sent him to a very probable death, possibly compromised the finalization of the agreement with the Daimyō and _couldn’t sleep_ for more than an hour at a time without the subjects of his dream spontaneously leaking blood from eyes and mouth and nose while whispering, accusingly,

_You’re not the only one who’s lost brothers._

It’s more or less easy for Madara to keep himself grounded as he wades through scroll upon scroll of proposed insurance policies, finishing Tobirama’s calculations on the most adequate civilian and shinobi taxes. His eyes hurt from the seemingly endless notes on mission classifications which still haven’t been decided on because every clan and every dimwit in said clans had their own idea of acceptable levels of danger. Heaps of correspondences with Nara Akami, negotiator for his clan on the terms of their joining the village, make Madara’s head hurt with the outrageous claims and never-ending fine print that requires his full concentration and an ungodly amount of caffeine to properly assess.

Five days and maybe a handful of hours of sleep later, Madara runs into Hashirama in the morning and finds himself restrained by his trademark iron grip.

Has he found out, then?

“Madara!" Hashirama's face is stricken with terror. “I’m _preposterously_ late for a meeting with the Akimichi and they’ve traveled here miles and I totally forgot but I had to take care of the draft treaties that Tobirama would have killed me for not completing—”

Madara wrestles his hand free, despite his bones’ protest, and slams it against Hashirama’s mouth.

“Calm. Breathe. Now talk,” he commands.

“Please, Madara, can you see Tobirama in the hospital and get his mission report?”

 _So he’s alive then_ , a part of his mind laments. _Of course, he is,_ the more logical part supplies, it’s the _Demon_ of the Senju after all.

“He’s hurt—and he says he’s fine, but I’m _not sure_ ,” Hashirama says, his signature puppy-dog eyes aimed full-force at Madara, “and he told the courier the report was _urgent_ but he can’t give it to anyone but us because it’s _classified,_ but I’ll be stuck in the meeting for _hours!_ ”

“What—” Madara shakes his head. “What in the world is so pressing?”

“I don’t know,” Hashirama whines. “Please? Look, I know it’s… it’s difficult, but you two seem to be getting along better!” Madara chuckles inwardly at the very gross misunderstanding. “I mean, you even did so much of his work, and I—"

“All right,” Madara growls, willing the whining to stop. At once, Hashirama’s pout curls into a wide grin.

“Thank you!” Hashirama says with a huge grin, tugging Madara into a hug. “And please, for the love of the kami, force him to get proper treatment if he’s refusing it. I’ll owe you one, my friend. A hundred. Anything you want!”

With that, he rushes off. Madara only rolls his eyes and changes course, heading for the nearest hospital Tobirama could possibly be kept in.

Far be it for the idiot to mention which one.

He gets lucky (for once) and finds the younger Senju on his second try, the hospital staff particularly annoying about ‘letting patients rest’ and ‘unwanted disturbances’, but Madara shuts them up with a glare and a few veiled threats. Ignoring all thoughts about the ensuing encounter and the contradicting mixture of feelings about Tobirama’s continued survival, he follows the nurse’s direction towards his room, makes himself push the door open and promptly freezes.

“It hurts,” Tobirama complains to the woman sitting next to him, apparently fixing bandages on his arm.

“That’s punishment for trying to remove them without the doctor’s express permission,” Uchiha Renri says, tone reprimanding, but a soft smile on her face nonetheless.

 _What_ , Madara’s brain supplies. His lips move soundlessly. His vocal cords seem to have shut down.

Renri doesn’t notice him, but Tobirama’s eyes shift to Madara the instant he opens the door. It's only after Tobirama tenses that Renri’s eyes whip towards him as well.

“Oh! Madara-sama.” She leaps to her feet to greet him with a low bow, and Madara finds himself too shocked to even express his annoyance at the unnecessary formality.

“You—” Madara starts, ignoring the urge to shake his head and check whether this is a genjutsu. “Renri. You, uh, you _work_ here?”

As far as he knows, Renri is an active kunoichi, an architect like her father was, a mother. Not a medic nin.

“No, I simply came to visit,” she says, the now dulled smile still in place. _Visit,_ Madara’s mind echoes, _Uchiha, visit, Senju Tobirama._ In what world is this even possible? “We’re friends.” They’re _what?_ Madara blinks, sure now that he must have missed when he'd fallen asleep and this must all be a weird dream.

He fights through the stupor, forces the words to come out,

“I need to talk to S—Tobirama.”

“I take it this is… confidential?” Renri asks.

“Yes,” Madara says at the same time the Senju says, “No.”

“No,” Tobirama repeats firmly, reaching for a scroll on his bedside table and holding it out for Madara, avoiding his eyes. “Here’s the report. Take care of it now, it’s important. And tell Anija again not to worry. I’m almost uninjured.”

Except his breathing is slow and shallow, and Madara sees the added effort in his usually fluid movements. The faint purple hue in his eyes, albeit fading, is a tell-tale sign of one of the Rakurai clan’s special poisons, and his body is riddled with countless cuts that tell of a moderately challenging battle. But it's the wound Madara branded him with that seems to bother him the most, too raw to have undergone proper healing.

Had he gone to _no one?_

“The mission, though,” Madara says, fighting through the utter confusion, tentatively taking the scroll.

“A success, everything’s fine. But you or Hashirama have to reply to the Daimyo as soon as you can.” Tobirama answers simply. Renri galnces at him, mildly curious, but says nothing. “Just read the report.”

The silence is uncomfortable, though blessedly short.

“I’ll be going then,” Madara says, because there’s nothing else for him to do, and he’s confused as hell, and _no one_ seems to want to explain what in the world is going on.

So he leaves, still feeling as if he’s stuck in a particularly weird dream. Is he sleep-walking? Imagining things?

His Sharingan flares to life and dispels the possibility.

It’s unnerving.

He’s finished reading the report by the time he gets to his office and has the letter to the Daimyō prepared in under an hour, carefully worded and double-checked for any potentially offensive wording, sent off to the capital with Madara’s fastest summons.

The most surprising thing about the report hadn’t been the description of Tobirama’s encounter with the mercenaries on his way back, not his account of the attackers’ total extermination, with negligible injury to himself. Not even the Daimyō’s furious demand for an explanation from the heads of Konoha's founding clans after a shinobi with a surprisingly strong fire affinity murdered one of the capital’s ambassadors the day before Tobirama’s arrival, leaving a message that read ‘for the village’ in their wake (something an actual rational village-affiliated shinobi would never do post-assassination, Madara had assured the Daimyō in his letter), no. The thing that threw Madara off was the short, inconspicuous note Tobirama placed inside the mission scroll:

_One of mercenaries mentioned that they clashed often with the Uchiha._

_E_ _astern bank of the Naka. Midnight._

Luck was, evidently, not on his side.

Gods.

He can’t believe he ever _allowed_ himself to be so stupid.

Madara knows grief has clouded his judgement, his lack of proper sleep even more so. He knows he’s walking on the thinnest ice, that it's only thanks to Tobirama's own missteps that he hasn’t yet been skewered by Hashirama, who seems to think him a kind and well-meaning friend.

The idiot.

He wonders what the Senju Demon is planning and how best to get out of the ensuing debacle. Perhaps he wants to fight this out instead of involving Hashirama (which would be wonderful and a great opportunity for Madara to kill him) or talk or threaten him (both great, both perfect, as long as Hashirama stays oblivious). He could, of course, be luring Madara into a trap, meaning to stage it so that Hashirama shows up to incriminating Madara right in the act. As he imagines the dozens of ways their meeting would go, Madara grows more excited and frustrated with every imagined possibility, both savoring the sweetness of opportunity and berating himself for thinking too fast, being too rash—again—and possibly ruining everything he has.

Though he has, essentially, nothing.

Only a friend whom he’d already betrayed by harming his little brother.

(Even though he has good reasons and Hashirama _should_ be able to recognize it, Madara knows he never would. Hashirama is an inherently good man with an almost too-rigid moral compass and he thinks Madara the same for some stupid, inexplicable reason. Madara loathes the day to come, when Hashirama finally realizes how wrong he’s been. Another entry in Madara’s long list of actions that disappoint the people around him.)

He buries his face in his hands, tears pooling unbidden in his eyes as his throat constricts on a suppressed sob.

He doesn’t know what he wants.

He doesn’t know what he _needs_.

He desperately wishes for his brother to just fucking come back, through whatever possible and impossible means.

_Traitor._

_You’re not the only one who’s lost brothers._

There aren’t many tears, as is typical of late; Madara supposes he’s shed most of them in the past few months. There are memories sealed by the Sharingan, though, which had activated momentarily due to shock, replaying over and over again the scene he’d scene at the hospital.

An Uchiha. The Senju’s _friend_. It’s sounds, but the evidence was right in front of him; another clanmate grown distant in the aftermath of Izuna’s death, now a friend of their enemy who finds offense in the Uchiha’s very existence.

Or perhaps he truly doesn't? How much of reality has Madara been blind to? How much doesn’t he know about his own clan? He craves for things to go back to the way they were with Izuna alive, when his clanmates were basically his extended family, not distant shadows communicating with him through pointless officialities that make him feel like a stranger. The thought pushes grief to resurface full force on anger’s pedestal, fueled by an undercurrent of envy and frustration that makes Madara wish, for a second that he could just end this.

End the pain.

Escape the hate all but coursing through him instead of blood at this point. Hate that he realizes isn’t so much directed at the world around him, but at himself.

The moon hangs high, full, bright and beautiful. As always, Madara finds himself mesmerized by its glow.

It isn’t rare these days, for him to stare out his windows on another sleepless night and contemplate the pale silvery orb or crescent, thinking and dreaming and wondering about promises of heaven, of eternal bliss. The Infinite Tsukuyomi, he knows, is naught but an ancient, made-up rite, a fantasy so unrealistic and contrived that he scoffs, more often than not, at the fact that it’s commemorated in the Uchiha’s sacred place of worship.

But what if—

A mild flare of chakra interrupts his musings and Madara turns to face his mortal enemy. Only the title seems so excessive when applied to the man standing across the river from him, calm as the deep waters he so masterfully commands, red-eyes narrowed, arms crossed as he stares at Madara as if waiting for him to make the first move.

Madara does, crossing to the Senju’s side of the river in a matter of seconds. He doesn’t draw his weapons but remains tense, waiting for the inevitable attack, or trap, or worse. The Senju matches his stillness, though, contemplating him with the familiar cold, calculating look in his eyes.

He isn’t even wearing his armor, just a simple kimono shirt and a haori that’s more his brother’s style thrown over his shoulders. There aren’t any visible weapons on him. It’s almost insulting, if he came without at least some sort of plan.

 _You’re not the only one who’s lost brothers,_ his taunt rings in Madara’s ears.

It makes him hesitate, for some reason, although it's nothing but an insult meant to downplay Madara's pain.

 _Traitor,_ Izuna’s voice admonishes him for his weakness.

Madara just wants to scream.

“I wish to talk,” Tobirama finally says without a hint of malice, as if the events of the last week never took place.

“Talk, then.” Madara feels no other presence, even as he extends his senses to their limit. No masked or suppressed chakra signatures, and Hashirama’s seems to be back in his home, calm and quietly content, so no ambush from him is to be expected.

What is he planning?

“Talk, then,” he repeats before Tobirama can say anything else, “and explain, Senju, because I’m quickly losing my patience.”

Tobirama blinks.

“Explain what, exactly?”

“Oh, for one, what a member of a clan you so despise was doing by your hospital bed and claiming to be _your_ friend,” Madara spits out the word like a curse, taking a step forward. Tobirama doesn’t even flinch. “ _Explain_ why your brother knows nothing about that little incident in your office, or about that I sent you on that mission _hoping_ it would kill you. Explain why you didn’t resist for _one second_ when I branded that scar onto your skin, why the hell you called me here, and why _I_ am the only one who seems to be confused by—by all of this!”

He can’t help but flail a little as he finishes his rant, if only because the frustration becomes too much to handle, making him feel like a child in a world that refuses to make sense.

“Renri is… an acquaintance,” Tobirama says. There's a confused frown on his face as he contemplates Madara with a curious gaze, never meeting his eyes directly. “We met while working on a construction project together. I do not see the strangeness in this.”

“She is Uchiha.”

“And you _still_ seem to be under the impression that I’m out to exterminate your clan,” Tobirama says, like it’s a _joke._

“You were prepared to kill _me_ that last battle between our clans,” Madara says, taking another step towards Tobirama, now all but crowding him, “you’ve killed hundreds—”

“So have you, and we’ve already had this conversation—”

“Ah, yes," Madara says sweetly. "Would you like it to end the same way?” he asks, flashing a smile, setting his chakra ablaze, sizzling with the promise of fire and pain.

Tobirama scowls but doesn’t otherwise react. It’s unbearably annoying.

“Why doesn’t your brother know about all this?” Madara demans.

“Because it’s none of his business, how we sort out our differences.”

Madara scoffs. “Differences, you say. Like the fact that you took away my last remaining family can be reduced to a _difference_.”

“So this is about Izuna.” Tobirama still won’t meet his eyes, yet Madara knows he can feel every movement, every hint of Madara’s intentions.

Yet Tobirama still doesn’t stop him as Madara crushes him against a tree, hand fisting in his shirt as he _pushes_ until the pressure starts obviously hindering Tobirama’s breathing. He simply grits his teeth and looks down, unblinking.

“You really don’t learn, do you?” Madara tightens his grip. Flips out a kunai and presses it against Tobirama’s throat. Applies pressure just shy of breaking skin. “Are you _trying_ to make me hurt you?”

“When did kill become hurt, Uchiha?” Tobirama says, with a strange, emotionless half-smile. “And isn’t that what you’d like, anyway?”

Madara stills, loosening his grip, but still holding fast.

“So what, you—” Madara splutters, trying to keep the dizzying panic at bay. He doesn’t _understand_. He presses the flat of his kunai harder against the Senju’s throat. Blood trickles slowly down the blade as Tobirama wheezes for breath. “You want me to kill you then? _Is that what you want, Senju?_ ”

Winds howl around them, almost echoing the frustration that screeches through Madara’s entire being.

“No,” Tobirama chokes out.

“THEN WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THIS?”

It doesn’t make any fucking _sense._ Tobirama has the gall to stare at him like he, Madara, is the one acting like a suicidal moron. And, well, considering the many ways he’d incriminated himself on impulse in the past few days, that _could_ be argued for, but the Senju is right there in from of him, weaponless, vulnerable, completely unresisting and apparently _willing to die._

“Because you’re not listening, Madara,” Tobirama talks, despite the effort it costs him with Madara keeping his blade flush against his neck. _Let him suffer if he so wishes to._ “And let me finish…” A shuddering breath. “Speaking this—“ Tobirama breaks into a cough. “This time.”

He’s breathing heavily, in such obvious pain and yet still, he faces Madara’s glare with his own for the first time, as if they’re on equal footing right now. As if Madara can’t kill him any damn second.

“You’re not,” the Senju gasps, “the only one who’s lost brothers.”

Madara thinks about it. Maybe he underestimates Hashirama's forgiving nature, all things considered. He thinks, perhaps, Hashirama will understand if he acts upon the urge that itches at his hand to _strike._ Perhaps he will spare Madara, considering the extenuating circumstance of his brother’s unapologetic insolence.

He lets his killing intent suffocate Tobirama instead of his blade as he removes it, still holding the Senju fast against the tree, and punches him as hard as he can, explosive chakra infusing his fist.

“I dare you, to continue, then,” Madara says as Tobirama sinks to the ground from the force of the blow, “lets see how much you last before you die.”

Tobirama only laughs, a broken, ugly sound akin to a sob.

“You’re not,” he says, “the only one who’s hurting.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Madara shouts, kicking him hard enough to send him hurling towards another tree. He lifts Tobirama up again and levels his face with his, prepared to strike again. Tobirama opens his eyes again, one framed by a darkening bruise and makes Madara freeze with his next words,

“I singlehandedly killed every member of the Uchiha child-killing squads that murdered my brothers. I didn’t need to do it. I snuck out, I tortured them, I stalled and put my life in danger because they deserved the pain. It’s logical,” he says, nonchalant, as if this is a conversation between friends in a bar, “they killed my precious people and I wanted revenge.”

 _Precious people,_ he said, further proof that, despite his ever-cold demeanor, he does, actually, care.

 _Revenge_ , he said, voice heavy with the kind of pain Madara has become intimately acquainted with as he grieved.

“I hated your clan not because I _felt like it_ , Madara, not because I _chose_ to,” Tobirama goes on, gaze burning, “but because you caused my family immeasurable pain. I _hated_ you because we were at war. I killed your brother, _because we were at war_ , just as he always fought to kill me." Madara swallows past the sudden tightness in his throat. "If that isn’t something you and Anija understand, with your play-fighting every godsdamned battle.”

He’s right of course. While Izuna always talked about _ending_ Tobirama’s life, Madara didn’t for a second think of outright killing his old friend, and not just because of Hashirama’s seemingly unbeatable jutsu. And now…

“I’ve lost family too,” Tobirama says, and Madara's Sharingan flashes the memory of him shouting for Hashirama to save himself back on that fateful day. “Not everyone, so I cannot know the extent pain, but I—I _understand_. The only thing keeping me from killing you if you hadn’t kept Hashirama from suicide would be my promise to him—and even then, I’m not sure I would be able to control myself.”

_What?_

“I get it. You want me dead. _Everyone_ knows this, except for Anija, maybe, because he’s a fool. I don’t want to die.” Madara misses the point he let go of Tobirama, too disoriented to care. “But you won’t rest until I do, will you?”

Madara shakes his head but not in answer to the words, rather as a means to make this—whatever _this_ is—stop. It seems surreal, the Senju standing there, uttering damning words, guilt-inducing words that make something within Madara shrivel up and ache.

“So let’s settle this like shinobi,” Tobirama proposes. He stands tall, spreading his arms like some sort of sacrifice. “A duel to the death. Not now, preferably, if you can extend that admirable self-control of yours until I take care of everything and settle my accounts.” He takes a deep breath and despite his outright calmness, Madara can sense the sheer terror in his chakra, his Sharingan picking up the faint tremors in Tobirama's arms. “What do you say?”

Madara stays silent.

The winds howl further, as if matching the increasing intensity of both their emotions, running rampant along with their chakras, fire and water, both ever-moving, clashing forces just like they themselves are.

“Madara?”

Tobirama says his name, which he doesn’t do often, if at all. And for the first time, Madara looks into his eyes and sees—red.

Red, tinted silver and blue by the glow of the night but still bright and visible to Madara’s Sharingan. Red, the color of blood and of love, the color of the three marks etched into Tobirama’s cheeks that make him look like a fierce spirit submerged in the moonlight. The color of fire which Madara glimpses for the second time in Tobirama’s gaze, feels it in the sincerity of his words. Madara sees Tobirama as he is, for, perhaps, the first time and is shocked to his very core to witness, impossibly, the first person who has ever, truly and completely understood.

Not Hashirama, his would-be best friend who sees in Madara all the good sides that he doesn’t and will never possess.

Not his clanmates, who _should_ be able to help but instead keep their distance, making the wound of his loss even deeper, a dark, festering thing.

Not the elders with their stupid advice and war-formed mentalities that drive Madara up the wall.

Not the gods who never answer.

Not Izuna who haunts his mind with ceaseless accusations.

_Tobirama._

The man who’s wounded his soul so gravely in the first place.

Madara can’t help it. He laughs.

Tobirama proceeds to stare at him, bemused, and he must think Madara’s lost it, but he finds that he doesn’t care. He laughs and laughs until his stomach and cheeks ache, until his shoulders relax and he feels feather-light like he hasn't in years.

“Madara?”

Oh, it’s hilarious of fate to treat him this way. There’s the one thing the elders are right about—there’s some sort of humor to be found in every situation, no matter how tragic.

"Madara!"

Tobirama’s hand is on his shoulder, shaking it gently. That and the look in Tobirama’s eyes, so full of genuine concern and fear—not for himself but probably for Madara’s sanity—make it all the more difficult for Madara to curb his amusement and school his expression into something neutral. He manages, though, eventually.

“Go home, Senju,” Madara says, a smile still stuck on his face, and, because he can’t help himself, he adds, “I don’t ‘duel’ as it were, with the mentally challenged.”

“What?” Tobirama’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean, Uchiha?”

“Just what I said,” Madara cuts off the chakra flow to his eyes and steps back. Tobirama’s chakra is a whirlpool of confusion and uncertainty, too irritating to bear the brunt of. “Go home—and trust me not to do what I did again. And I will trust you to keep what happened a secret from your brother. Your choice at the end of the day.” Madara shrugs. “But I hope we have a truce.”

“What do you…” Tobirama shakes his head, gaze betraying his bewilderment. His bemusement looks almost comical with the black eye and the lip still bleeding from Madara’s blows. “ _Why_?”

Madara considers him. The efficient, cold, practical, rational disaster of a man standing before him.

“Use that genius of yours,” he says slowly, “you'll figure it out.”

Before the Senju can say anything else, Madara leaps away.

It’s telling of how absolutely chaotic his life had been that the silence all but suffocates him as he comes home.

No whispers, no voices of the dead.

No constant buzz of worry and anguish in his head.

No headache (blessedly) to make him reach for a bottle so he can drink himself into passing out.

Just peace, once thought unattainable, a gift Madara thought he’d never receive again in this lifetime.

For the first time in years, as he sinks onto his bed and lets sleep overtake him, the nightmares stay away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Madara :c Here, have a hug. I pwomise it’ll become better honey *shields him from the cruelty of the world*
> 
> Anyways, I hope this turned out okay. Ish? I'm trying my best to get back into this writing thing while at the same time trying not to over-edit, otherwise I'll end up not posting anything at all, but ugh. WHY IS THIS SO HARD *self-combusts*
> 
> Honestly this chapter was planned out to be, like, 2-3k words, but then Madara just FORCED me to write all this shit and suffer with him T_T Also, this fic is basically a partial fill for my Bad Things Happen Bingo card (hence, lots of angst before it gets better), and the prompt that sparked this was **Branding**. The next prompt is **Insomnia.**
> 
> Comments are life! I'd love to know your thoughts on the story <3 And if you'd like, find me on [tumblr](http://lou-random.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/Lou_Random) to yell about Naruto and other fandoms or just chat :3


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